ENGL 483 – Elementary School Writing

Title: The Day The Crayons Came Home
Author: Drew Daywalt
Grade: K-2nd
Age: 5-7
Classroom use:
-incorporating dialogue
-examples of personification
-character perspective & point of view

As teachers you may notice that when you assign that traditional research paper in your classroom that you may lookout around to see all of your students looking like this. This look of pain and suffering coming from your students is most likely due to the monotonous rotation of research papers that your students are finding themselves stuck dealing with. Though research papers may be beneficial and essential in some cases, the amount that you assign within your classroom should be kept to a minimum. There are so many other ways that you can lead your students to conduct various assignments that are equally, if not more, successful than having your students research a particular topic and demonstrate the knowledge that they have gained which will consequently result in a more enjoyable and memorable experience with writing.

Going through school, my teachers would always assign research papers like discussed above and on rare occasions I had teachers that would allow our class a little freedom and the ability to take the writing assignment into our own hands. This change in instruction was definitely refreshing; however, it was much harder on us as students because we had become so accustomed to having someone tell us what to do.

As future elementary teachers we can take the knowledge that we have gained from our various courses here at Longwood, as well as our prior knowledge from the experiences we had as students ourselves in order to develop at an early age a greater appreciation within our students for writing prior to their arrival at the age where mandated research papers are more essential to the writing process.

Examples of RAFT assignments to incorporate into your classroom:

-Create an advertisement

-Create a booklet, brochure, or manual

-Create a commercial

-Conduct a demonstration

-Create a diorama or conduct an experiment

-Create a diary or journal entry

-Create a newspaper article

-Create a word search or crossword puzzle

Ideas:

-newspaper addressing why students are developing a dislike for

writing

-lesson plan to use in future class

-letter thanking a teacher for the good writing experiences you

had in their classroom

What do you remember most from your academic past?  It probably isn’t the monotony of research papers and worksheets that you had to do each year. Most likely the educational activities which you remember most are those that were more engaging, exciting, and interactive. All students have different learning styles and they will not learn to their highest potential if they’re not interacting with their work. Students learn in various ways ranging from auditory, visual, or kinesthetic depending on their personality types. Personally, I fall more toward the kinesthetic end of the spectrum because I learn best when I interact with what I am learning. A prime example of kinesthetic assignments tends to be projects that allow me to expand on my thoughts and go as in depth as I choose and reflect back on later when I need to remember what I had learned.

Imagine you’re in your classroom having to create a lesson plan on the structure of a cell. If you give your students a fill in the blank worksheet they will simply be focused on completing the worksheet and submitting it. However, if you give your students a hands on interactive project to make themselves that is either edible or simply made of unique and unusual materials then the students will be more likely to reflect back on this experience later and have a better recollection of what they had learned because they would have had to have understood what each part of the cell looked like so that they could accurately represent it and place it appropriately in the cell; thus, developing a greater level of knowledge on the subject than that of a fill in he blank worksheet.